Railway-car brake.



\ f Nc. sulla. Patented Apr. 2, |9ol. 1 E. r. MEYER.

RAILWAY CAR BRAKE.

(pplicnzion med sept. 1o. 1900.;

Clio Modem 'Sheets-Sheet l,

WQ@ Ema .s @im m m Y Oonnfvs' No. 67l,H3.

'Patented Apr. 2, I90I. E. F. MEYER.

RAILWAY CIU! BRAKE. (Applimmn md sept. 1o, 1900... maman.) 2sheets-sheet a.

wnNEssEs: Mmmm l @lig Emms E BY ATTORNEYS ED STATES ERNST E. MEYER, oEWAYERLYPARK, NEW JERSEY.

`RAI LWAY-CAR BRAKE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 671,1 13, dated April2, 1901.

Application Med-September 10, 1900. Serial No. 29.498. KNO model.)

To @ZZ whom t may concern,.-

Beit known that I, ERNST F. MEYER, a citizen of the United States,residing at Waverly Park, in the county of Essex and State of NewJersey, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Railway-CarBrakes; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, andexact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilledin the art to which it appertains to make and use the same, referencebeing had to the accompanying drawings, and to letters of referencemarked thereon, which form a part of this specification.

The objects of this inventionare to provide for railway-cars abrakewhich shall act upon the rail instead of on the wheels; to thus preventflat spots being ground upon the wheels by their sliding on the rails;to enable a greater braking force to be applied; to provide aconstruction in which the brake-shoe shall always lie in the verticalplane of the rail; and to secure other advantages and results, some ofwhich may be hereinafter referred to in connection with the descriptionof the working parts.

The invention consists in the improved brake for railway-cars and in thearrangements and combinations of parts of the same, all substantially aswill be hereinafter set forth, and nally embraced in the clauses of theclaim.

Referring to the accompanying drawings, in which like letters ofreference indicate corresponding parts in each'of the several views,

Figure l is a side elevation of a portion of a car having my improvedbrake. Fig. 2 isla plan of the same, the body of the car being removed;and Fig. 3 is an end view. Fig. 4 is a detail side View showing thebrake-shoe and operating parts in relaxed position, and Fig. 5 is asimilar view showing the parts in braking position. Figs. 6, 7, and 8are sectional views on lines m, y, and z, respectively, of Fig. 4.

In said drawings, a a indicate the rails of a.railwaytrack, and b thebody of a car of any usual construction. Said car is supported upontrucks c, in which are journaled axles d, carrying wheels d'. I haveshown two axles in a truck parallel to each other and providing spacesbetween the front and rear wheels for the brakes at the two Sides of thecar. Each of said brakes comprises a friction-shoe e, adapted to engagethe rail-surface and being` rounded or upcurved at the ends and looselyattached by chains f to the trucks to limit its range of longitudinalmovement. Said shoes have each a dovetailed rib e at the upper side,which tits into a correspondingly-shaped groove or slideway in the sidepiece g of a carrier C extending horizontally from side to side of thecar and adapted to slide vertically between guides h on the truck, whichguides also prevent lateral or longitudinal movement of the carrier.Pivoted to the upper edge of each side piece g and near the oppositeends thereof are the lower inembers ,i j of vertically-disposed pairs oflevers, the upper members ij of which are pivoted at their upper ends onthe truck, as at 7c 7c. The two intermediate ends of the members of apair of levers meet in a toggle-joint, as at 7c', and to prevent theirfalling entirely apart the end of one lever is slotted or forked toreceive the other and a pin m passed through, said pin, however, workingin a slot ted opening in one of the levers, so as not to hamper thetoggle-joint action. The bottom of the recess in the forked lever andthe end of the other lever are suitably rounded to bear against eachother, and the two front and rear pairs of levers at each side of thecar are arranged to bend outwardly apart at their joints in relaxing.Preferably the end surfaces where the levers engage one another aretransversely rounded on a curve crossing the lever obliquely, as at Z,said curves diverging from each other toward the inside of the joint orside away from that toward which bending takes place. This constructionprovides that the point of contact shall change toward the straightline, joining the fixed ends of the levers said levers bend outward fromsaid straight line.

To operate the levers, each lower member of a pair is at its outer edgeextended upward past the point of engagement with the upper lever toform a handle-rod n, the upper ends of these hand lerods being connectedto means for applying draft to force the opposite pairs of leverstogether. To this end a draft-rod o, extending longitudinally of thecar, has a pivoted cross-piece o at its end, and each end IOO of saidcross-piece is coupled by a short link p to the inner end of a lever q,pivoted at a point intermediate of its ends on a fulcrum q', fixed onthe car-truck. The outer end of this lever is coupled by a rod r to aforward handle-bar n, while another coupling-rod s extends from a pointinside the fulcrum q' to a rear handle-bar n. Draft upon the rod otherefore swings the levers q and draws the handle-bar n n of.,the frontand rear levers together, as will be understood. Horizontal rods Zpreferably connect the ends of the handle-bars at opposite sides of thecar to secure greater rigidity. K

To insure an automatic lifting of the brakeshoes e from the rails whenthe draft is relaxed, counterbalance-weights u are provided at the innerends of lever t, pivoted on the truck and attached at their outer endsto the carrier-frame g to raise it.

Obviously by my improved construction a large braking-surface isprovided to engage the rail, and it is so located, being between theclosely-adjacent wheels cZ, that it will always be in line with therail. Furthermore, great pressure can be brought to bear upon thebrake-shoes and with very little power by the toggle-joint leversandconnections shown.

Having thus described the invention, what I claim as new isl. In arailway-car brake, the combination with a truck having front and rearpai-rs of running-Wheels, of a carrier-frame sliding vertically betweensaid pairs of wheels, brakeshoes held at the opposite sides of saidcarrier above the rails and adapted to slide longitudin ally a limiteddistance, vertically-disposed pairs of levers each having its uppermember pivoted at the upper end on a xed fulcrum and the lower end ofthe lower member pivoted to the carrier, the two intermediate ends ofthe levers meeting in a togglejoint, and the lower member having anupwardly-projecting handle-bar, and means for applying draft to thehandle-bars to close the togglejoints, substantially as set forth.

2. In a railway-car brake, the combination with asupporting-truck havingfront and rear pairs of wheels rigidly connected, of a horizontalcarrier-frame vertically movable between said pairs of wheels,brake-shoes longitudinally disposed over the rails and each having atits upper edge a dovetailed rib lying in a corresponding groove in thecarrierframe', chains attached to the ends of said shoes and connectingthem to the truck, pairs of vertically-disposed levers having Lipper andlower members pivoted at their opposite ends to the truck andcarrier-frame, respectively, and forming at their meeting ends atogglejoint, the lower member having an extension projecting beyond saidjoint, and a system of levers for applying draft to said toggle-jointlevers, substantially as set forth.

3. The combination with a car-body and supporting-truck, of avertically-sliding carrier-frame, brake-shoes lcarried by said frameparallel to the rails, toggle-joint levers vertically disposed andadapted when straightened to force the carrier downward, a handlebarprojecting from one of said toggle-joint levers at their meeting endsand extending said lever past the toggle-joint, means for applying draftto said handle-bar, and levers pivoted on the truck and each having atone end a weight and at the other end engaging said carrier-frame toautomatically raiseb the shoes from the rails when the toggle-jointlevers are relaxed, substantially as set forth.

4. The combination with the sliding carrier-frame and brake-shoesthereon, of a pair of levers extending away from said carrier and havingtheir opposite ends pivoted one to said frame and the other to a fixedsupport, the adjacent ends of said levers being transversely curved andadapted to work upon each other to form a toggle-joint, the curvesextending obliquely with reference to the length of the levers, wherebythe edges of the levers on the side toward which bending out occurs are.longer than the inner edges, and the point of contact of the endsapproaches the outer edges as the levers approach a straight line, meansfor holding the ends of the levers in contact, and means for operatingsaid levers, substantially as set forth.

' 5. The combination of the brake-shoes, a sliding carrier for saidbrake-shoes, pairs of levers arranged end to end and extending away fromsaid carrier, the opposite ends of a pair of levers being pivoted to afixed support and to said carrier, respectively, and the meeting endsbeing one forked or slotted to ,receive the other and loosely heldtogether and the other to the said carrier, and the meeting ends of thelevers forming a togglejoint, handle-bars extending upward from thelower lever of each pair, draft-levers at opposite sides of the car,coupling-rods extending from said handle-bars to said draftlevers, and adraft-rod coupled to said draftlevers, substantially as set forth.

In testimony that I claim the foregoing I have hereunto set my hand this20th day of August, 1900.

ERNST F. MEYER.

Witnesses:

CHARLES H. PELL, RUssELL M. EVERETT.

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